Personal area networks in a medical setting permit sensor data from a patient to be efficiently transmitted to a display device. Many such networks use Bluetooth technology both in sensors attached to the patient and in the display device. Each Bluetooth sensor is typically paired to the display device to enable the transmission of sensor data to the display device.
In order for a Bluetooth sensor to be paired to a display device, power must be applied to both the Bluetooth sensor, including the sensor radio, and the display device including, the display device radio. Each radio must be in a connectable mode. Further, if the radios in the sensor and display device are not aware of each other, at least one radio must also be in a discoverable state. Typically, wireless sensors operate on battery power. It is desirable that a mechanism for applying power to a wireless sensor be easy to use, minimize drainage of the battery, connect to the desired display device and ensure that the patient be correctly identified.
In a medical setting, it is important that sensor devices are correctly identified to ensure that the sensor devices are placed on the correct patient. If the sensor devices are wired, the patient identification is usually not an issue, since the wire is run from the sensor directly to the monitoring device. However, wireless sensor devices typically do not provide any patient context, e.g., room number, patient ID, patient history, when attached to a patient, so identification of the correct wireless sensor devices with the correct monitoring devices can be an issue.